Washington - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which would give the Justice Dept. authority to prosecute civil copyright cases, expand seizure powers in civil copyright cases, and create a Cabinet-level "piracy czar" to coordinate all of the government's various anti-piracy initiatives. The bill was lauded by Hollywood, and criticized by librarians and consumer and digital civil liberties groups including Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who in a joint letter sent to the Committee called the bill an "enormous gift of federal resources to large copyright owners with no demonstration that the copyright owners are having difficulties enforcing their own rights."

Washington - A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introduced the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, a bill that would authorize the Attorney General to prosecute civil copyright infringement cases, and also includes measures to strengthen both civil and criminal copyright laws and beef up law enforcement resources to fight intellectual property crimes.

Washington - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has closed public comments on a proposal from the Hollywood studios that would give content owners control over the recording capabilities of devices like digital video recorders, with service providers like AT&T (NYSE: T) and DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) weighing in in favor of the proposal, while groups including the Consumer Electronics Association, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) opposed it.

Washington - The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved the PRO-IP Act, a bill that would provide more resources for the government to combat intellectual property crimes, increase penalties, and create a White House-level position to coordinate efforts. The bill, which was already amended to remove a portion that would have penalized each track on compilation CDs as a separate infringement, will now move to a vote in the full House; a Senate version of the bill was introduced last fall.

Washington - The U.S. House Education and Labor Committee on Thursday approved a major college spending bill that includes provisions urging schools to adopt anti-piracy programs on their campus networks, CNET News.com reported. However, it appears that the provisions -- which include investigating "technology-based deterrents" to file-sharing and looking into alternative, legal download services -- will not be directly tied to receiving federal financial aid.

New York - A group of consumer advocates and Internet law scholars this week asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to step in and prevent the nation's second-largest broadband provider, Comcast (NASD: CMCSA), from interfering with file-sharing activities by some of its subscribers, the Associated Press reported.

Los Angeles - AT&T has partnered with Hollywood movie studios and record labels to develop anti-piracy technology for deployment on its broadband networks, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday.